TRAVEL TALES
A New Beginning
An article by : LIU , CHI YIN HENRY
I am Henry, a Year 4 Bachelor of Education
(English Language) student. If I had not taken a
gap year, I would have had the same life as you
do in Hong Kong now (studying, tutoring and
hanging out with friends). Instead, I simply
ditched everything that I had in Hong Kong and
started a new beginning in Kazakhstan as a
United Nations Volunteer for UNICEF. Before I
made this move, all of my friends were
criticising my decision. They were saying, "Why
don’t you go on this volunteer programme after
your graduation?" "You are going to miss a lot."
Honestly, I struggled a lot before I came
here. I was thinking whether I would be able to
catch up with my studies. I had doubts about
my determination to go away for a semester. I
was scared that I would have to build
everything up once again after I come back.
IT Magazine / Occtober Issue
Starting a new beginning is always scary
and intimidating. During those days, there was
a devil telling me, "If I don’t go now, I would
probably never have the opportunity to do so
after my graduation." Despite all these
uncertainties, I waywardly bought a one-way
ticket to Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan,
not even knowing when I will be coming back.
Before coming to Kazakhstan, I had never
heard of this place. I did not even know that it
is a Central Asian country though I was a
Geography student in high school. At the end of
the flight, I looked through the window and
that was the very moment when I knew, this
was my new beginning. When I was waiting to
pick up my luggage, a Hongkonger immediately
spotted me (perhaps I have a typical
Hongkonger look) and we had a small talk. He
wondered why I came here and he said he
rarely saw Hongkongers coming over here.
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